


second chance (to make a first impression)

by tatterhood, violentcrumbles



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Daddy Kink, Light BDSM, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rimming, Sex Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 18:14:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10668096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatterhood/pseuds/tatterhood, https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentcrumbles/pseuds/violentcrumbles
Summary: Rafael thought that all Sonny was giving him for their anniversary was a nice dinner at his favorite restaurant. Turns out Sonny has something a little different in mind.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> We split this monstrosity into two parts, because although all of it takes place in the same AU, you don't really need to know much about that AU to read chapter 1 of this fic. Chapter 2 is a cleaned-up version of the backstory we came up with for this universe, and reading it is 100% optional.  
>   
> Although we have no one to blame for this but ourselves, this fic was partially inspired by [this](http://thedominantdaddyblog.tumblr.com/post/159314221751/thedominantdaddyblog-ive-got-another-job-for-you) (very, very NSFW).

 

“Surprise!” Sonny yells, leaping out of the cab. Rafael pays the driver, then slides more sedately out after him.

“You realize that I _do_ recognize the address of the courthouse when I hear it,” Rafael says. His tone must not have been as cutting as he thought, because Sonny just smiles even brighter at him. _Dios mio_ , Rafael could forgive those dimples anything.

“Spoilsport,” laughs Sonny, leading Rafael up to the courthouse steps. He pauses there a moment before hitching the mysterious backpack he’s been carrying around all evening higher on his shoulder, “C’mon,” he says, oddly determined. Rafael lets his curiosity get the better of him yet again, and follows.

 _All in all, it’s been an excellent anniversary_ , Rafael decides, unexplained late-night visits to his office notwithstanding. Rafael had wrapped up the Utresky case with a win on Thursday, and Sonny had finished his with an excellent plea deal on Wednesday. So they’d both been able to finish up all the paperwork by Friday and actually have a full weekend for once. Probably the first they’ve had together in the entire year since Rafael had been able to finagle his boyfriend into becoming his clerk full time. Or was it his clerk into becoming his boyfriend?

Of course, Sonny's not Rafael's clerk anymore, but his colleague—he got a richly deserved promotion to ADA about six months ago. Rafael pushed Sonny to apply for the position and gave him a glowing recommendation and no one was prouder of Sonny than he was.

Rafael looks over when Sonny waves to the night guard as they cross the courthouse lobby. The light catches a flash of silver at Sonny’s wrist—platinum, actually. The cufflinks were Rafael’s present to him when Sonny got the promotion, and Sonny only wears them on special occasions, claiming they’re too nice for day-to-day wear. There’s a matching tie bar wrapped and waiting for him at home, because Sonny is amazing and deserves only the very best.

Sonny's excelled at being an ADA just like he had excelled when he was a clerk. He's just as good as Rafael, even inexperienced; less willing to get blood on his hands outright, but more _devious_ somehow, better at charming juries and drawing defense witnesses in while subtly wrecking their testimony. The few times that Rafael has been able to catch him in court have necessitated him dragging Sonny back to that broom closet of an office befitting a lowly junior ADA. Just to make out and muss him up a little. There isn’t space enough in Sonny’s office to do more than that, and the middle of the day in a busy courthouse is not the time or place for it either.

Rafael is just grateful he was able to hire an assistant before Sonny was officially promoted; Carmen's efficient and smart, and her efforts combined with Sonny's admittedly dim replacement _almost_ make up for the loss of Sonny.

He shudders to remember the dark times before Sonny came to work with him, not to mention the fact he almost missed his chance at Sonny completely. He’d taken one look at the overeager kid fresh out of night school with his terrible clothes and worse mustache who’d been staring at Rafael wide-eyed with awe, and passed him on to ADA Benitz instead. Let _her_ deal with a baby law clerk’s first crush.

If Rafael’s actual choice of clerk hadn’t been as useless as he had turned out to be, requiring Rafael to “borrow” Sonny…god.

Sonny pushes the button for the elevator. He’s more flushed than the walk up the stairs should warrant, pink riding high across his cheekbones, just begging for Rafael to trace the line of the blush with his lips, and maybe find out where else Sonny is pink.

He tries to marshal his thoughts. It’s so much harder for him to get Sonny to blush like that now that Sonny’s over his little crush on Rafael and in something much deeper instead. They ride the elevator up in silence, sneaking glances at each other that are respectively confused and intrigued on Rafael’s part and anticipatory and teasing on Sonny’s.  

There's absolutely nobody on Rafael’s floor when they arrive, not even the cleaners who usually show up now. Rafael glances at Sonny, even _more_ curious, and gets a mischievous grin in response.

"I may've bribed Gustaf on my floor to get Santiago and Joanna on _this_ one to clear out, just for tonight," he says.

Sonny leads the way to Rafael's office and stands off to the side while Rafael unlocks it, grinning smugly. A few aberrations start to fall into place for Rafael: Sonny's intermittent unexplained absences over the last few weeks, his increasingly pointed questions—Rafael's fairly sure they were all going toward a very, very good place.

“Sit at your desk,” Sonny orders, tossing his backpack on Rafael’s couch and starting to rummage through it. Rafael raises an eyebrow at that but complies. Usually _Sonny_ isn’t the one giving the orders.

He raises his hands in a little “ta da” gesture once he’s seated, but Sonny just rolls his eyes, reaching into his pack and pulling out a—

"A blindfold. Really," Rafael says flatly.

Sonny holds his hands up, placating. "If I could trust you not to peek I wouldn’t need one. Just for a minute, I promise. I'll make it worth your while."

The sweet, bright smile Sonny gives him is one Rafael historically can't resist, and tonight's no exception. "You're a menace," he says conversationally, tilting his head up to give Sonny easy access and flinching a little when the blindfold's firmly in place. "I hope you're using your powers for good."

He gets a chuckle and a soft kiss as a reply to that. "I'll be right back," Sonny promises, withdrawing too soon. Rafael can hear him pulling things out of the backpack, and assorted rustling. He hears Sonny’s footsteps muffled on the carpet as he walks over to Rafael’s desk, and the crinkle of paper as he sets something down on it. The footsteps retreat towards the door, which the door opens and shuts softly. Rafael sits in the dark and silence.

Eventually, there’s a knock at the door and Sonny's voice sounds through it: "Mr. Barba? I'm here for the 2 p.m. interview?"

Rafael pulls off the blindfold and opens his eyes. On his desk is a sheet of paper that looks like the daily schedule he has printed up for him everyday, just so he has a hard copy. There’s a time circled in the middle of the day, _2:00 p.m. - D. Carisi, Clerk interview_. Rafael’s breath catches. Sure, he whispered the idea to Sonny late one night, months ago, while they were both still struggling to catch their breaths. Just a dirty little fantasy, but Sonny wouldn’t actually...

Rafael checks the date on the page. Sure enough, it’s not today’s date, or even the date one year ago today that he and Sonny first went for a celebratory dinner and ended up making out all the way back to Rafael’s apartment, but it’s from more than three years ago, the day Sonny first applied to be his law clerk and Rafael turned him down. _Oh, Sonny._ There’s another knock at the door. “Mr. Barba? I don’t mean to interrupt, but I had an appointment?”

Well, if Sonny’s going to go through all that ridiculous effort to set this up… "Come in," Rafael calls out, adjusting himself discreetly under his desk.

For a moment it’s almost like looking back in time, fortunately minus that hideous mustache and the hockey haircut. The Sonny who comes in the door is much, much closer to the sweet, naive kid Rafael met three years ago. He steps in timidly, glancing around like he doesn’t belong, instead of crossing the room with confident, long strides like he usually does. He’s shaken his hair out so it’s unstyled, which isn't _historically_ right, but that's for Practical Reasons. Namely, Sonny knows how much it turns Rafael on when his hair’s all disheveled and loose.

The suit, though, that's perfect—too wide in the shoulders, too loose almost everywhere else; Sonny's foregone both total realism and a tie, and has left the first three buttons undone. He squirms a little under Rafael's assessing gaze, looking first down, then up through his eyelashes. His eyes are fixed on Rafael, darting between Rafael's eyes and his mouth. If he's aware that he's biting his lower lip, he's doing a good job of pretending otherwise.

"Dominick Carisi," Rafael says breezily, paging through a stack of files. "You're interviewing for the clerk position, yes?"

"I—yes, sir," Sonny stammers. The sly, knowing look he shoots Rafael after the other man shifts a little in his seat is, Rafael admits to himself, even more attractive than this careful innocence. It's a good thought.

"Mm. Well." Rafael snaps the file folder shut and sets it aside. "You're a very promising candidate, Mr. Carisi. But are you really willing to go the extra mile, as it were?"

There’s a moment of silence, then Sonny's face twists and he bends over the desk, his shoulders shaking with laughter. "Sorry, I just—this is _so dumb_ , Rafael."

"We're reenacting pornography," Rafael points out drily. "You were expecting Tennessee Williams?"

"That'd be pretty interesting, though," Sonny says, tilting his head like he's _actually considering it_. "I mean, think about the possibilities—"

"I honestly don't know why I'm in love with you," Rafael tells him, meaning exactly the opposite. "Come here anyway."

Smirking, Sonny makes his way over and drops into Rafael's lap, letting himself be shifted into a straddle. He noses along Rafael's throat, moaning a little and grinding down when Rafael's hands tighten around his hips.

"C'mon, you know exactly why," he says teasingly; his smile is open and wide, _joyful_ , and Rafael can see that joy already mapping itself out around Sonny's eyes. He'll have laughter lines by the time he's 35, Rafael knows. He wouldn't be _Sonny_ if he didn't.

"Yeah," Rafael says softly. "I do."

It's terrifying, being this vulnerable. It's like cracking open a shell he didn't even know was protecting him and crawling out, trusting Sonny to shield everything Rafael can't. And he _does_ , is the thing.

Sonny brushes kisses up Rafael's jaw to his mouth, sighing happily when Rafael's hands come up to pull him in deeper and wander down to his ass. "And you know— _Rafi, fuck_ —you know, right? You're it for me."

"I know, _cariño_ ," Rafael murmurs, nipping at Sonny's bottom lip and pulling the other man into a deeper kiss. "You too." He pauses, a little offended this time, when Sonny starts shaking against him again.

"This was a moment," he says crankily. "You're ruining it."

"Sorry," Sonny says sheepishly, withdrawing and resting his forehead against Rafael's. "It's just—this is so ridiculous, and I love you so much, and I think that's why."

Rafael pauses to run this through his personal Sonny Translator. "Because that's who we are," he says slowly, tracing a hand up Sonny's spine and enjoying the resulting shiver. "I get it."

"Yeah," Sonny breathes, leaning into the caress. "And on that note— _daddy_ ," he says, grinning when Rafael's hips twitch up just a little, "You might want to take that hand down a little further."

"You _didn't_ ," Rafael says. He skims a hand down, over Sonny's hole, and fondles the plug nestled there.

“Fuck,” he says, “All through dinner? The cab… Fuck, you were so flushed after all the stairs...”

Sonny hums an affirmative moan against Rafael's throat. It's not quite enough, so Rafael tugs gently at the hair just above the nape of Sonny's neck.

"Wanted to be ready for you, daddy. All nice and open," Sonny whispers into Rafael's shoulder. " _Need_ you—" He breaks off with a shudder when Rafael nips gently at his earlobe before mouthing down his neck.

"Clothes off, _mi amado_.” Rafael taps the plug lightly, making Sonny moan again, loud enough to make Rafael very glad the cleaning staff isn't in the office tonight. “And get rid of this. I want you bent over and ready for me.”

“Sure thing, _daddy_ ,” Sonny says, before giving Rafael’s jaw a quick bite and standing, unfolding himself from Rafael’s lap. He walks around to the far side of the desk while letting the oversized jacket slip from his shoulders.

Rafael leans back in his chair as Sonny unfastens his cufflinks, and sets them carefully in the little bowl Rafael has for paperclips where they’ll be safe. He pauses and looks up at Rafael through lowered lashes as he starts to unbutton his shirt. It’s one of Rafael’s favorite games;telling Sonny just how to undress, making him wait for Rafael’s permission to undo each button while Rafael watches him and murmurs hot and filthy praise. The first time they tried it with Sonny wearing a three-piece suit, Sonny came before he’d even gotten his belt off.

But Rafael doesn’t have the patience for that tonight, so he just nods at Sonny to continue.

Sonny still makes a show of it, flushed under the slow heat of Rafael's scrutiny. His breathing's already starting to pick up—Sonny, Rafael knows from long experience, fucking _loves_ it when Rafael just watches him come undone. And there's a special thrill here in Rafael's _office_ , where anyone could find them. After Sonny's finally slid his slacks down  those long, long legs and thrown them over to join the pile of his clothes and shoes on Rafael’s couch, he stands still, hands twitching at his sides, letting Rafael drink in the sight of him.

Rafael hums in approval as Sonny stretches himself out across the desk, reaching towards him. Then Sonny gives him a cheeky wink before plucking Rafael’s pocket square out of his suit pocket. Before Rafael has time to react, Sonny reaches back and works the plug out of himself with a groan, before wrapping it in the square of fabric and tossing it over his shoulder in the vague direction of his clothes. It hits the floor with a thud and rolls under the couch.

Rafael scowls. Sonny just folds his arms under his chin on Rafael’s desk blotter and grins. He’ll be in big trouble for that stunt later and _knows_ it, but Rafael will deal with that later. He has the much more intriguing problem of a completely naked Sonny Carisi spread across his desk to deal with first.

" _Qué bueno estás_ ," Rafael murmurs, unfastening his pants as he wanders over to the other side of the desk to smack his boy's ass, "What do you want, _querido_? Tell me."

This earns him a high, breathy whimper from Sonny, the kind Rafael _knows_ wouldn't ever escape Sonny's lips normally. "Please, _please_ —fuck me, Daddy, fill me up, I _need_ you. Need your cock, I'll do anything, just…" His back tenses a little; anxiety, Rafael assumes, and he mouths down the stiff muscles along Sonny's spine until they unwind.

Rafael smiles against the base of Sonny's spine. "I know, baby," he breathes, spreading Sonny's legs even further and crouching down for better access. "And you'll take me so, so well, won't you, but I need to make sure you're ready for me." He thumbs circles around Sonny's lubricated hole gently before he leans down to lick his way in, hooking a finger in carefully. It's not that he's really worried—he _knows_ Sonny can, and has, happily taken Rafael with far less preparation than this. Rafael dips another finger into that welcoming give, then another, swearing unconsciously under his breath and moving back up as he goes.

If he's honest, it's half knowing how gorgeous Sonny is just on the edge of coming and half wanting to maintain the illusion of the virginal, untouched kid Sonny projected earlier. It's even worse knowing it's not so much the "virginal, untouched" part that has Rafael so worked up as the "shared performance" part—Sonny guessed at the role Rafael wanted him to play and honestly performed it, and Rafael tried to do the same for Sonny.

" _Need_ you, daddy," Sonny moans; he's lost now, flushed and bucking back on Rafael's fingers like he can't help it. His legs spread even more, inviting against the cherry wood.

There's no resisting the invitation Sonny's issuing, really; Rafael pulls his fingers out, scrapes his teeth softly against Sonny's shoulder, and tugs his own zipper down. There's always something filthy-hot about being fully clothed against a totally vulnerable Sonny. The way he’s trusting Rafael to dirty him up in the best ways and only take whatever Sonny's willing to give.

"Patience," Rafael whispers; he doesn't miss the shiver this earns him. " _No te imaginas como te quiero_." He pushes in and watches Sonny's back arch and shudder.

They've never been great at role-play scenes, honestly. Rafael's a terrible actor outside of the courtroom, and Sonny may be a good bluffer, but he cracks up way too much in any bedroom role he plays to have any credibility. But this—this isn't role-play, not really.

"Ohhh _fuck_ that's good," Sonny says, shamelessly rocking back onto Rafael's cock. His fingers are scrabbling against the polished wood of Rafael's desk, head thrown back to give Rafael access to his throat. "Harder, daddy, I'll do anything you want."

"Yeah?" Rafael nuzzles Sonny's throat, grinning smugly to himself when it earns him a long, throaty moan. "So let me come for you, _querido_ , make yourself come for me too. You're so sweet, so pretty, so good, I _know_ you can do it."

"Come in me, daddy, _please_." Sonny _almost_ sounds ashamed now, but he's still fucking himself on Rafael's cock, still baring his throat for Rafael's mouth; there's no way Rafael _couldn't_ comply, honestly. And Sonny comes right afterward, his lips pink and parted, obscene.

"You were so good," Rafael murmurs in Sonny's ear, pulling out. "So good, I don't know—" He cuts himself off and tries to pretend he wasn't about to finish the sentence with something horrifyingly sappy like _how I lived without you_. "—I don't know how you're real," he says instead, splitting the difference. "I love you."

"Love you too," Sonny says softly, twisting to nip at Rafael's bottom lip. He pulls away and grins brightly at Rafael. "Also, there're some baby wipes in the backpack over there. If, I dunno, you were looking to _prove_ that love."

* * *

 

Hours later, at home in bed after Sonny has been _thoroughly_ chastised for his abuse of Rafael’s pocket square:

_“You do know that was Brooks Brothers?”_

_“Was it?” Sonny asks, with false innocence._

_“It was. Are you going to apologize for ruining it?”_

_“Bite me.”_

_Rafael does._

Rafael runs his fingers through Sonny’s hair. Sonny sighs and pulls himself even tighter against Rafael’s side. He lets out a sigh, already more asleep than awake and Rafael smiles, twisting the damp strands into curls that will be especially wild and unruly in the morning.

Sonny mutters something, clenching his fingers into Rafael’s pajamas and slides a leg over Rafael’s possessively. The worn plaid of Sonny’s pajama bottoms rides low on his hips, and Rafael can see the ring of bruises already starting to form against the pale skin. He makes a mental note to kiss every one of them in the morning. He maneuvers his other arm around Sonny’s back, and tugs lightly on the t-shirt Sonny is wearing—one of Rafael’s old Harvard ones—pulling it up just enough to see the bruises more clearly.

Sonny shivers as his back is exposed to the cold night air, and Rafael murmurs soothing nonsense, rubbing his hand over Sonny’s skin. Sonny unconsciously repeats the motion, smoothing his hand absently across Rafael’s bare chest.

Rafael runs his hand down Sonny's chest to his thigh. He's wearing a Harvard t-shirt he stole from Rafael, and it drapes over his body, clinging like it was made for him. The fabric, worn threadbare after years of wear, is soft and familiar; the latter, at least, has been true since the first time Rafael pulled it on as a junior in college. It was the first time he felt like someone who _should_ be wearing a Harvard t-shirt, which probably mattered more than it should have. Probably it should matter more that Sonny appropriated it right around their third date, but any protest Rafael put up about that would be token at best. It goes better with Sonny's eighteen-year-old plaid flannel pants, anyway—scruffy and rumpled and painfully early 2000s, but _loved_.

And Rafael, well. He's shirtless and wearing half of an outlandishly expensive pajama set that he loves beyond reason. It's a little old, too—he bought the set as a celebratory gift to himself maybe seven or eight years ago when he got promoted. A little pretentious? Sure. A little superfluous? Absolutely. But when he shifts against Sonny there's a pull and give in the way the fabrics rub against each other, and yeah. Yeah, this is right.

* * *

“Happy anniversary, Rafi,” Sonny murmurs sleepily. “D’ya like your present?”

“Mm, if you don’t know the answer to that, I must have been doing it wrong,” replies Rafael, earning himself a pinch to that ticklish spot right below his ribs. He flinches and cuffs Sonny lightly upside the head. The fact that the motion turns into more of a caress means nothing.

“If you’d come into my office like that the first time, I wouldn’t have pawned you off on Benitz. We could have been doing this _years_ ago.”

“Liar,” Sonny says, the fondness evident in his voice. “Doesn’t matter anyway, it worked out alright in the end.”

“Yeah.” Rafael plants a soft kiss against Sonny’s forehead and reaches down to pull the covers up higher over them both. They both have early mornings and busy days ahead, and Rafael can’t wait to spend every one of them with the man in his arms. “It really did.”


	2. Chapter 2

Sonny decides police work isn't for him and works his way through law school. After he's finally passed the bar, he winds up interviewing to be a clerk for the Manhattan DA’s office. He's hired as a clerk for an ADA who wastes him—dismissing his abilities and passing him off to other ADAs for drudge work—until he meets Rafael Barba.

Rafael's super busy and also has a useless clerk and therefore ends up using Sonny's skills a _lot_.

At some point Carl Rutherford, the smarmy asshole who got the job Rafael’s clerk instead of Sonny, and who dislikes Sonny with a contempt that only someone who didn't really earn their job can have for someone who has, goes, "Ugh, God, how do you stand it?"

“...Stand what?”

A smarter man than Carl would understand that these are dangerous waters to tread, but nope. He soldiers on. "How he just pants after you like he's some kind of pathetic little puppy. Like he's _ever_ gonna make it here."

Obviously Carl's all kinds of wrong, because Carisi's eager to please but he's not a suck-up—Rafael was wrong about that, too. But Carisi is, well. Smart, and capable, and with a capacity for flexible thinking and strategy that Carl can't even dream about matching. And he struggled to get here and isn't going to be driven off easily even by his asshole colleagues. Rafael, who still feels like he has to prove he belongs here sometimes, he admires that.

Not that he's ever gonna tell Carisi that, obviously, but still. He assigns Carl a week of back filing in the basement the next day instead of letting him help prep for a case. You know, because it really needs to be done. Alone. By Carl.

(Fuck Carl.)

Let's be clear here: Rafael is honestly not attracted to Dominick Carisi at this point in time for _myriad_ reasons. Sonny has what basically amounts to a mullet, terribly fitted and unflattering work clothes, and a mustache which could probably serve as proof of insanity in most court cases.

But that doesn't really matter right now Rafael has a case to prep for, and Sonny's ADA just went on maternity leave, so Rafael asks for and gets him as a substitute. Carisi's competent enough, and he's certainly more eager to please than most of the baby lawyers hanging around the courthouse.

Right so, Sonny is "requested" to go help Rafael while his ADA is out. Which basically results in him chanting _Yayyayyayyay becoolbecoolbecool_ in his mind. He totally doesn't realize that Barba actually thinks he's good at his job, but he instantly cottons on to the Carl situation. He feels a pang of guilt for .02 seconds or so, but he's dealt with Carl before and Carl is an asshole, so fuck him.

And okay. Maybe Rafael took an interest in the first place because Sonny's boss kept complaining about his clerk who asked QUESTIONS and wanted to LEARN and actually wanted to PROVIDE INPUT. And who was horribly lower-class, obviously. He didn't even go to an Ivy.

So immediately, unwillingly, Rafael feels this pull toward this unpolished, enthusiastic _kid_ , who's maybe in his late 20s. _Maybe_.

So. They start to prep for whichever fucking case, and at first it's "Shadows don't speak, they have no opinions."  But Sonny keeps pointing out some really interesting angles, and sure, most of his ideas Rafael knows from experience won't work, there are one or two gems. Which is kind of refreshing, because Sonny—Carisi—THE KID seems to genuinely just want to help. Any scraps of praise Rafael throws his way seem to come as a total(ly welcome) surprise. And Rafael is super scant with his praise and overly ready with his critiques, because he refuses to be fond of the kid, or even worse, let Carisi think Rafael can actually stand him or even sometimes enjoys his presence. That would be AWFUL.

But really, the "huh" moment for Rafael comes when Sonny—after going in depth through a bunch of mindless dreck that most people, Rafael included, would have just skimmed, finds some key detail that would have totally destroyed their case if they'd gone forward as planned.

And he's really tentative about even bringing it up. “Hey, um, Mr. Barba? I think this might be an issue, right? Because..." And then he goes on to _demolish_ it.

Meanwhile, Carl just keeps being foisted off to go run down various court decisions and precedent laws, while Sonny and Rafael spend hours building (and arguing with each other about) the case in Rafael's office.

Worse yet: at some point Sonny shaves the horrible no good very bad mustache he's been sporting since Rafael met him and _oh fuck_ it's even worse than Rafael thought, because Carisi's actually attractive.

* * *

Concurrent to all this, Rafael's in a casual sexual relationship-type situation with a younger dude. Who's fine, but who's also just...not totally right for him. The guy won't talk back EVER, even outside of the bedroom. He's allergic to peanuts and once almost let Rafael order THAI for both of them. They're kinda just not right for each other, and they both kinda know it, and it's okay. But they still have something going, and at some point Rafael meets the guy outside his office for lunch and kisses him hello in a fairly...obvious way which includes Rafael pushing the guy up against the wall and holding him there while kissing him fiercely.

And Sonny's heading out with a book and his sandwich to hang out on a park bench and sees this, and his heart plummets. Because he's been nursing a crush for _months_ now, and it turns out that Barba was attainable this whole time but also unattainable for Sonny, because the guy Barba's making out with now is just stupid hot, and—yeah, no, Barba wasn't ever gonna look at Sonny twice, what the hell was Sonny thinking.

But it's cool! Sonny's been really careful to be professional, so this shouldn't be a problem, right? It's not like Barba ever knew Sonny was having inappropriate thoughts about him, so it's fine.  

Unfortunately, Sonny doesn't yet know how easy he is to read, especially for an experienced trial lawyer, given how easy and sweet he's been so far with Rafael, but the thing is Rafael does know, and he _notices_ when Sonny comes back from lunch all sullen and withdrawn.

Sonny's still helpful, still conscientious, but he's also careful to avoid hand-to-hand contact when they pass papers to each other, and every time their eyes meet and Rafael even thinks about smiling or vice versa, Sonny shrinks in on himself and pulls back.

At the same time Sonny's torturing himself thinking about how big Rafael's hands looked on that guy's waist, how Rafael had him pinned flush against the wall and utterly at his mercy. Which is...a really worrying combination of feelings, honestly. Plus they're both due in court tomorrow (Sonny doesn't know how rare this is, but Rafael invited him to sit second chair in the trial). And Jesus, how is Sonny supposed to deal with that.

So Sonny goes into court that morning all nervous, but he gave himself a pep talk, he can DO this. He looks the part. He knows he's hot stuff. He's got this.

And Rafael is not at all struck dumb when Sonny strides into the courtroom all well-dressed and confident.

The first half of the day goes great. It's just opening statements, but Sonny takes excellent notes during the defense's statement, and even nudges Rafael once or twice to point out something he's circled. They're like a well-oiled machine. But then the judge calls a break for lunch.

Sonny, emboldened by how well it went says, "Hey I was gonna grab lunch at Agamemnon's. Wanna join me?"

And Rafael would _love_ to, but he's got 8 texts and two missed calls from his—not boyfriend, but Rafael would die before using the term “fuck buddy.” All of the texts are some maddening version of "are you busy?" "it's not that important" "can you talk" "I mean, it can wait" "are you free?" "I'll be at that steak house all afternoon if you get a chance." Jesus Christ. So Rafael begs off, but says he'll see Carisi in a hour.

But fucking _Carl_ witnesses all this, and corners Sonny in the bathroom.

"So, Barba turned you down, huh? I'm surprised, most guy won't say no to a free blowjob no matter who's giving it. Even from a trashy Staten Island reject."

Sonny is crushed, and would really like to just flee to nurse his bruised ego and apparently obvious unrequited crush. But Carl is not a bright man, and thinks that being a lawyer always means decimating your opponent, so he doesn't stop. And Sonny can take it, really he can, until Carl says something like "...don't even know what a queer would see in Barba anyway. Prissy little fag is just shined-up gutter trash and we all know it."

At which point Sonny punches Carl in the face.

* * *

So Sonny instantly knows: 1. _I should not have done that_ and 2. _Well, that's the end of my career, it was nice while it lasted!_

He leaves a stunned and bloody nosed Carl on the bathroom floor and goes to pack up his things. But even if he's done, he doesn't want to leave Raf—BARBA in a lurch, so he leaves a note with the court clerk letting Barba know Sonny's working on some stuff for the trial and won't be back in court that afternoon. He then goes back to get all his notes in order and outline everything, so that when that fucker Carl takes over Sonny's place in the trial, even _he_ can't fuck it up.

* * *

Meanwhile, Rafael gets to the restaurant assuming there's some kind of emergency, but the guy is just like, "Oh you came, it's not working out is it? I guess we should go our separate ways."

Which yes, Rafael agrees with that, but that could have been a text? Or a phone call? Or maybe something that could have waited a couple hours? They both knew it was coming anyway.

So this is great, because Rafael blew off lunch with Sonny to get all the way over here, and now he's not even going to have time to grab some lunch before he gets back, which means another vending machine lunch because if he's vicious at the best of times? Hungry Rafael could make _Putin_ weep.

The only thing keeping Rafael going is that at least he'll have an excuse to ask Sonny out to dinner now to make up for lunch. But he gets back and there's no Sonny, just a note, and a suspiciously smug looking Carl, who has clear, obvious marks on his shirt where he tried to rinse out the blood, offering to help out in court that afternoon.

The fact that Carl does not have a spare shirt ready for this sort of emergency only lessens Rafael's opinion of him further, but it's not surprising. Rafael knows Carl can't even anticipate and prepare for apparently small problems like this Sonny's anxious enough to have at least two full spare suits stashed away in the coat closet in Rafael's office. He really can't afford them, but his tailor cut him an AMAZING deal in exchange for Sonny mowing his lawn and helping the tailor’s wife with her grocery shopping every Sunday.

When Carl is very nonchalant about the matter—“Oh well, guess I'll just have to help you out from now on probably, too bad!"—Rafael gets suspicious and goes to Sonny's desk and finds the outlined notes, etc. all neatly typed up and organized just how Rafael likes them. All this happens with Carl hovering behind him getting increasingly nervous, because oh shit apparently money doesn't make you good at things or vice versa.

Rafael doesn't just drag Carl up to his office and accuse him, though. He decides to let him work through the day without comment while Rafael does his due diligence, _then_ ruin Carl’s life for this later.

* * *

In the meantime, Sonny is essentially rocking back and forth on his living room floor with at least two of his sisters either shoving food at him or offering to just punch this Barba guy's teeth in. ("Don’t do that, I like his teeth. Oh god."

"Fine. So what about that Carl dick?"

"Smash his fucking face in.")

Basically Sonny's imagination is just playing him Technicolor, all-singing, all-dancing pictures of Barba finding out about Sonny's pathetic crush and laughing about it with That Weasel Carl. He can't totally believe that's TRUE, because his gut tells him Barba's not that kind of guy at all, but he's a little off-balance right now. He would know he might be going a little far, but on the other hand, he did punch another clerk in the face, so it's not like his career _isn’t_ over and as excruciating as possible if he tries to explain.

Plus it's not like he isn't  aware of how removed he is from his cohort, class-wise, if it comes down to a “he said, he said (then punched him in the face)” scenario. Sure, Sonny’s made friends with all the court officers and literally all the non-assholes to make up for it, but it’s not like that’s going to help.

The point is, Sonny knows he wasn't much to begin with in this world and knows it won't take much at all to kick him out. So when he gets a call from the office at 9:30 the next morning he picks up expecting it to be a termination call.

Instead he gets Rafael shouting at him. “Where are you, Carisi? I need you in court! Rutherford is useless!”

Sonny, who is reeling/angry/heartbroken, _still_ scrambles out of bed (where he is curled up rocking back and forth. He moved from the living room floor). "I'm so sorry, counselor, I—I thought I left a note."

"No. You didn't."

"But—"

"I know one of your colleagues coerced you into resignation. Do you want me to legitimize that?"

"...is 45 minutes okay? Or 30?"

"30? Really?"

"I'm in Staten Island, you want I should teleport?"

"As soon as you can, then, Carisi. Wiseass." There's a terrible amount of fondness in the last word. It's the "wiseass" that tells Sonny it's really okay, or at least that it _could_ be really okay.

Sonny gets himself more or less together in one of his best suits with a vest for morale, and heads in.

Rafael hasn't said a word to Carl since Sonny "resigned," and Carl's taken this as free rein to just shit all over Sonny, because he's a fucking moron. He's also decided it's now okay for him to suck even more at his job, because the harder-working guy from a less expensive school got fired and standards are lowered, so he's extra useless this morning (he's going to be second chair until Rafael can swap Sonny in, Rafael hopes).

They break for lunch, and Rafael immediately breaks toward the door because he knows Sonny'll be waiting to be let in out there with Carl dogging his heels and being absolutely inhuman levels of obnoxious.

And Rafael was right, Sonny's sitting on a bench right outside the courtroom studying one of the discovery documents. He's turned away from Rafael, and Rafael doesn't look at the soft skin at the nape of his neck and think about pressing soft kisses right there. Not at _all_.

"Don't be late again. We have the mother-in-law after lunch, I need you to talk to her, make sure she won't embellish her statements, and remind her I'm on her side, she can call me whatever she wants when she gets _off_ the stand,” says Rafael to Sonny, as he pulls out his Blackberry.

Carl interrupts, "I already..."

"Not well, you didn't. If you want to be helpful you can go check in with the coroner, I need to know—"

"I'm not doing that."

"Great, go home,” Rafael says without looking up, “Carisi, mother-in-law, then if there's time, see if—"

"—the coroner heard back from his buddy in DC. On it. You got the—"

"Yes, TARU called in, they're willing to dumb down their slideshow but I want to go over it to make sure it has small enough words for juror eight."

Sonny and Rafael break off, not without a goddamn delighted grin on Rafael's part, though he tries to tone it down, leaving a pissed and confused Carl in the hall.

* * *

There's some unexpected testimony that day in court, so Rafael is way too busy that night trying to figure out how to fix this to ask Sonny out to dinner and Sonny is way too busy going through old email transcripts with him until midnight to consider cheap Chinese delivery and cold coffee a date.

They win the trial through a combination of Sonny's meticulousness and Rafael's absolute brilliance in the courtroom, and neither of them have really seen, or had time enough to worry, about Carl.

Then the trial ends, and Rafael thinks, _fuck it_.

"Buy you a drink, Carisi?"

"Seriously? I mean. Yeah! Yes. And you should call me ‘Sonny’."

"That's going to take more than one drink."

"Yeah well, if you're buying..."

They share a little smile that could be the start of so much.

"Let me just get my coat," Sonny says.

They joke a little and discuss the trial all the way back to Rafael's office, and it's so easy, so light, but when they open the door, Evil Carl's standing there smirking his dumb face off.

"I know what's going on," Carl says, all smug and somehow even _more_ punchable. "You're giving him all the good jobs because he's willing to bend over for it. And all those hostile witnesses he actually got to talk? What, he doing them the same favors? Or is there some other reason? Staten Island Italian huh? You using his ‘connections’? He's a fucking thug, punched me in the face when I told him to leave you alone. Did you know that? I got witnesses.

Carl advances, “Here's what's going to happen, you get me transferred somewhere good, like Robbery or Narcotics, not some dead end like SVU, and I keep my mouth shut and never have to deal with you two perverts again. You don't? I go to the DA first thing tomorrow, tell him everything I know."

Sonny takes a step forward, because he wants thug? _He'll get thug_. But Rafael just stops him by lightly laying two fingers on his chest. A move that Carl definitely notices and sneers at. Rafael then calmly walks over, and pours the remains of the over-brewed coffee that's been sitting there since lunch into one of his ridiculously delicate coffee cups.

"Let me get this straight. You plan to tell the DA what, exactly? That you suspect a fellow clerk of trading sexual favors for...working 80 hour weeks? For correcting the paperwork _you_ screwed up? For building a rapport with witnesses that helped win a case that the DA is…” Rafael checks his watch, “At this moment having a congratulatory press conference with the mayor about? Well done.”

He takes a sip of his coffee, then continues, “I _am_ curious, though—in this scenario, am I a moron or a pimp? Because I may be many things, but I don't think anyone would believe that I was moronic enough to believe that some hot twentysomething just happened to be interested in me at the same time I started giving him actual challenging work. Especially if he was sleeping with half our witness list at the same time."

Rafael pauses to take another sip of coffee, makes a face, then turns back to the room, ignoring Carl to address Sonny.

"What are your rates?"

"Huh?"

"Well, if I'm not a moron, then I must have been pimping you out. Kudos, by the way. Mrs. Morelli seems like a very difficult woman to please."

Rafael turns to Carl as Sonny stammers. "Not that I know when he'd find the time, doing your job as well as his."

"He assaulted me!"

"So you said. I assume this had something to do with _someone_ leaving a resignation note with the clerk, so it must have happened in the courthouse. Your witnesses? Were they other clerks? Lawyers? The maintenance staff, perhaps?

"By the way, Sonny, has Manuel's wife had her baby yet?"

Sonny starts to realize what's going down.  "Uh, yeah, last week. They named her Rose. The christening's two weeks from Sunday."

"I'll send a gift."

Rafael waves a hand at Sonny to continue.

"So yeah," says Sonny. "Not to mention the fact that I just heard you threaten a commended Assistant District Attorney with blackmail unless he advanced your career. I may not have been able to buy my way into a fancy school like you, Carl, but at Fordham they taught us that that was a felony. Not to mention the various civil suits for slander and the like Mr. Barba could slap you with if he was so inclined."

Rafael hums thoughtfully, "There's an idea. What kind of settlement do you think I could get from something like that? I would need enough to keep you in the life of luxury to which you have clearly become accustomed, after all."

Sonny can't help but laugh. "Sorry, that wasn't my area of expertise."

"Ah well. Mr. Rutherford, you are going to meet with the DA tomorrow and it will be to regretfully tender your resignation as you have decided to seek work in the private sector." Rafael grins wolfishly. "I very much hope to meet you in court some day."

He sets his cup down and grabs his coat  before turning to Sonny. "I'm not feeling like just a drink anymore. What do you feel like? Steak? Seafood?"

"You still buying?"

"Well, since you’re allegedly repaying me in sexual favors, I hope you'll consider the lobster."

Rafael waves a hand at Carl as he holds the door for Sonny, "Lock up behind you, and if you decide to trash the place, those vases came with the office. Start with them."

* * *

The taxi ride to the restaurant Rafael chooses is sort of charged, the way first dates are when you're not totally sure they _are_ dates. But Sonny's hand keeps edging over and Rafael's keeps moving to meet Sonny's, and by the end of the ride they're pretty much holding hands and staring out of their respective windows so they can pretend they're not.

Pretty much this is a rinse and repeat process through dinner; Sonny's got way more precise tastes in this kind of food than Rafael does, because they were raised to be snobby about totally different types of cuisine.

So it goes great, until there's this moment outside the restaurant when they're _about_ to kiss and Sonny pulls back at the last moment.

"What about your boyfriend?"

"My who?"

Oh shit. "Or husband. Or whatever." Sonny punctuates "or whatever" with a vague wave. "I saw you with a guy a while back, like two weeks ago? Romantically, I mean." (It was one week, four days. Sonny is fucking precise when it comes to his jealousy.)

Rafael shuffles through annoyance, resignation, fondness, regret, affection, and explains the deal to Sonny.

At which point Sonny says, “Okay, fine, so why haven't we—” but by then, Rafael's hands are already around his waist and he's already pulling at Rafael's hair, so whatever.

They end up going back to Rafael's place, but mostly just end up passed out curled around each other, because it's been a long and mostly frustrating day (with a few bright moments). But they wake up in the morning with Sonny's nose pressed into Rafael's neck and end up kissing slowly and lazily, ignoring their respective fairly strict schedules.

* * *

Their relationship's a little slow to start, both of them wanting to make sure they can draw a clear boundary between their professional and personal lives.

Sonny is the one to initiate kink—carefully, a little shyly, because what if he's wrong? And even if he isn't wrong, he's short on experience if not enthusiasm in that department.

But Barba started showing up in Sonny's fantasies basically when they met, and it took about two days for those fantasies to start getting filthy. Sonny never had to really worry about erasing his browser history before this.

They definitely have vanilla sex before anything explicitly kinky happens—not that the general vibe isn't there from the start. Maybe Sonny goes bright-eyed when Rafael has him trapped against the mattress/wall/every other available surface, maybe when Rafael broaches handcuffs tentatively Sonny gets really excited and tries hard to tone it down.

“Sure, yeah, that'd be... Yeah. I'd like that," he says, eying the red, hand-tooled leather cuffs Rafael's holding out. They both know the disaffected tone Sonny's trying for is a total lie. Rafael doesn't mind the lie itself, and Sonny doesn't mind the lie being known.

Or Sonny's _definitely_ the one to initiate kink. Rafael may've dated a younger guy, but it wasn't like _that_ , no matter what he might've thought about. Rafael's really unconsciously dominating, he’s not into the "scene" or anything and probably wouldn't know what that even was if it wasn't for work, but the way he just _is_ is built for that and makes Sonny just vibrate with joy. Sonny encourages it as subtly as possible before giving up and just being like "LOOK, JUST FUCKING TIE ME UP AND SPANK ME...Oh shit, please tell me I didn't misread this."

Rafael kind of freezes up for a second, then nods slowly. "Yeah, I can. I can do that. Yes. Let's do that. ...Right now."

Sonny doesn't know much about the "scene" either—he's been working and putting himself through school, so basically a double full-time job, and that's only left him with straightforward vanilla one night stands as an option. But he’s been talking to a couple friends who _are_ connected to the scene and looking stuff up, so he kind of knows _some_ of the deal and walks Rafael through it.

They're both fucking terrified at first, but different kinds of terrified and different levels, and when they actually manage to start things up it's almost ridiculously awkward until Sonny wriggles down on the bed and raises his arms up so Rafael can cuff them to the headboard, and then it totally isn't. Not at all.

Rafael maps Sonny out with hands and mouth, focusing on really odd areas that shouldn't be erogenous but really, really are—the dip of his collarbone maybe, and this one very specific point high up on Sonny's neck.  

In Sonny's admittedly hazy and unformed fantasies about this kind of thing before, it was always Very Serious Business, and whoever was with him in the scene was stern and remote. It turns out that playing with Rafael is honestly just that—it's sweet, a little snarky on both sides, and they can both be a little silly without worrying about judgment. If Sonny mouths off occasionally, well, he's usually very okay with the punishment. (Unless it involves him not getting to come at _all_ that night; he outright protests that the first time Rafael uses it and subsequently doesn't get to come for the next two days. Rafael almost never has to use it again after that.)

* * *

Nothing much about their dynamic changes _outside_ the bedroom, obviously, except Sonny isn't all overawed and wide-eyed around Rafael anymore. Rafael doesn't miss that, necessarily, but he confesses in bed one night that he didn't _mind_ it. Sonny hums thoughtfully and says maybe something can be arranged; he just grins when Rafael presses for details.

They still squabble over weird legal details, but they add movies, music, whose turn it is to do the dishes, why Rafael's totally wrong about the best way to make pasta sauce, why the second Sonny's hair dries it immediately [ turns into bedhead ](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/de/25/1c/de251c15927bcc42240f44d43858c2fa.jpg) without a ridiculous amount of pomade…

 _"It's_ always _like that," Sonny says, elbowing Rafael away from the mirror and batting his hands away from Sonny's head. "Jeez, Rafi, let it do what it wants."_

 _Rafael subsides and sulks in the doorway while Sonny finishes getting ready for bed. "'Let it do what it wants,' he says," Rafael grumbles. "Like it's_ possessed _."_

_"Maybe it is," Sonny says mysteriously, pulling Rafael over to sit on the edge of the bed. "Anyway, you like my hair, you liar. Or some parts of it, at least." He sinks down to his knees and guides Rafael's hands down to tug at his hair._

_It turns out Sonny's right; Rafael_ really _likes Sonny's hair._

Anyway. Squabbling's kind of a hobby of theirs, is the point.

It's not that they don't have real fights where both of them say things they don't mean and feel awful about later. Sonny takes awhile to calm down about the class thing, Rafael tends to lash out viciously when he's feeling vulnerable or attacked, and they both get oddly possessive anytime exes come up. They get through their fights, somehow, although Sonny spends a couple nights at his sister's place here and there, those nights get rarer and rarer as time goes on.

In Sonny's opinion, the possessiveness thing is more of a feature than a bug; the sex is fucking _spectacular_ with jealousy thrown in the mix.


End file.
